Let's Kill Hitler
by Gwidlet
Summary: The Doctor's POV from the moment River kisses him to the moment he lies, desperately crawling towards his one constant companion, who - not as it is in "Rose", death - but his TARDIS. INTERNAL DRAMA.


River's lips tasted different this time, and I knew the moment I pressed my lips to hers that I should pull away, that I had to pull away, but at that moment I didn't see the point. I suppose that I just didn't want to pull away from the woman I knew I could spend the rest of my life with, no matter how short a life that was; she was the person that would stop me feeling so alone all the time. I couldn't bring her into the TARDIS and mess her up because she'd already done a pretty good job of that herself, and I couldn't give her false hope of travelling the universe because I already knew that when she died, she'd done just that. But there are still moments, just snippets of moments, where I look back and think I should have pulled away, and saved her the life she was doomed to have with someone like me.

The pain started in my chest. When our lips touched there was an instant reaction. Both of my hearts beat wildly, and I could feel them exploding out of my breast with every desperate beat they had. I fled to the TARDIS to hide the fear, hide it from the people that I loved; but more than that, I fled to hide the fact that I thought I deserved it. The pain exploded inside every part of my body, setting each bone alight and burning the muscles in my body with a fiery rage, to a point where I could almost feel them falling off the bone in the crackling heat and seizing up as each shock of pain wracked through me. This is what I deserved; this is what I always deserved — for Rose, for Martha, for Donna, for Amy. I had ruined every one of them and every one of them had, in a way, ruined me, and I had no right to feel that way after how I'd treated them, how I'd lied and deceived just to make my life seem a little bit happier, just a little bit cheerier.

"I'm sorry." And here is the time where I throw away all pretence of being okay, where I just become the little boy who didn't know what he should do or how he should go about doing it. I was afraid to die, and for just a few seconds I admitted it to myself — because death was nothing, it was endless and forever and it was darkness, and in death I couldn't hide like I always hid in life. I couldn't hide my own darkness, I couldn't hide the nightmares or the sound of my race's screams — my family's screams — as their planet burned. I wasn't sorry for anything in particular, really — I was sorry for existing, for living my life how I had, for ever speaking to anybody or anyone. If I hadn't existed then nobody ever would have died, nobody would have screamed to begin with, and I wouldn't have had to wander this ape-ridden planet of wonderful, fantastic beings and pulled some in with the idea of travelling the stars when really I was just very, very lonely. I wouldn't have to die, either, and nobody would have to be kind enough to cry over my grave. More than anything, I was sorry that I'd forced kindness from these beings, kindness that I didn't deserve. Every punch to my chest and gasp of pain from my mouth reminded me of another thing I was sorry for, and the endless pain I caused for everyone around me.

I clung to the edge of the TARDIS's guardrails, using them to support me more than I ever had before. River Song needed me, she was only just beginning, only just starting out — she was as I had been, a child of the war, and I needed Rose like River needed me, and yet both of my hearts were screaming in pain and roaring in desperation to keep beating, let alone to fuel my desires to help a random woman that didn't know she was my wife. What if the rest of my life, the last of my moments with River, were spent in this agony, in this endless prism of pain and torture? What if the only thing I had left to do with her was bringing her constant sadness? But no, that wasn't right — nobody would be sad over my pain, because I would never show it to them. In a way, I was too weak to show them anything; to show someone how much pain you're in, you have to trust them first. And even for that, I hated myself — had these people not done more than enough to earn my trust, done more than enough to earn every single right over me than anyone could earn?

"Voice interface… voice interface activate, it's an emergency," I spoke into the TARDIS, but in reality I almost expected her, too, to abandon me, because I was just the mad man who was no longer mad and definitely no longer someone that anyone had any reason to speak to. Every heart wrenching person I'd ever spoken to, every person I ever ruined and destroyed, every single one I never went back for, flickered before my eyes. Maybe I deserved to die like this, looking into the eyes of everyone who didn't deserve what I did to them, everyone whose farewells always ended in tears. But that wasn't right; I never ended River, River continued on, she lived and died and then she lived again, I saved her, I had done what I always did and I had found a way to save the stubborn woman. I had only minutes to live and yet the woman I loved was still back there, alone and unsure of herself with nobody to guide her. How could I love someone that never tried to kill me? At least River understood, at least she knew why I deserved so desperately to cease my existence or rather have it never begin in the first place, and maybe she was right about that, but from the very beginning she knew that and she still fell for me. It was something priceless, unforgettable — this was a woman who forgave everything I did and I couldn't just leave her there, alone with her parents as they cried over my death, I couldn't just leave her alone. I had a reason to keep on living and it was the reason I was dying to begin with.

I hoisted myself up, forcing my way into an upright position although my vision faded almost to black and my entire body — soon-to-be-corpse — screamed in protest, arching in pain before finally settling into the most unusual position it could find that still gave it some mild form of comfort. I had to go back, I had to save her and the Ponds, rescue them all. That was my job, that was what I had made my job, that was what I had promised myself I would do to try to repay the world for the wrongs I had committed. The TARDIS rocked slightly in her own silent form of protest, maybe wanting me to stay still or maybe just wanting to make me die so she could move on; I wasn't quite sure. Still, I forced my way on. It had to be done and I would be damned if I would ever stop trying to do it.

"I am not… dead.. yet." I took my cane and my top hat, just to prove the point. The effort it took to make it seem like I could walk normally was extraordinary, the pain even more overwhelmingly so; but it was vital that I got their attention. River Song could die any second from the pain, could be tortured any second, could cry any second, and… ah, but I slipped. My body crashed to the ground in an involuntary shudder of pain, arching and writhing in a desperate attempt to escape the torture it brought upon itself. I would have stopped, I would have given up — I had given up, that very moment, because just moving was painful and nobody seemed to be doing anything, and it would be so nice, so nice to just let go. Just finally, be rid of everything in my life that had done me wrong, be rid of everything I had ever done wrong - just slip into the peaceful rest of death and die. It would be so nice, so peaceful; I wouldn't have to be alone, I wouldn't have to have someone to accompany me, I could just be myself and not exist at the same time. The release was so close, so powerful, but someone's screams brought me back, and my body was forced into motion again against its will, my mind stronger than the corpse that it controlled.

"Amy… Amy stop them, save River… I don't know how but she's your daughter, Amy, please. Please." Her screams were terrible. They were worse than mine; they tugged at each of my hearts in turn like a thousand touches of the deadliest poisons, encasing them in fear for the woman that I had come to love against my will. And I was helpless, I could not save her, I had trusted myself to save her but I couldn't, I just couldn't; my body collapsed and I closed my eyes, resigned to the fact that this darkness would be the last thing I ever saw, and the last thing my eyes had seen was the screaming form of my would-be wife, and I hung on long enough to listen, just listen, and wait for her screaming to end. And so my body shuddered, and I could feel myself still breathing but I wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking at all whatsoever, I was just floating over the sea of my consciousness in its vast and broad existence and watching the words run out of me like water. It ran out of my body, followed closely by every ounce of my life, and then some foreign words reached me through the penetrating darkness, words that I recognised once upon a time:  
"Doctor, help. Doctor? Doctor please. Please, Doctor. Help." Three words, just three, and I knew that they were just three, so I searched through my memories for some hint at what the words meant. And when I found out that it was her, my best friend, little Amelia Pond, my eyes snapped open again in a demonic action that I knew I shouldn't be capable of. One hand after another I crawled towards the TARDIS, crawled towards my one constant companion, but there was no doubt in my mind that I couldn't make it. I couldn't make this trip, I couldn't make this final thing, I couldn't save my friends. I could never save them; they always ended up dead, dying or wounded, and it was always my fault. But there was one woman who never hurt anyone. One woman who could save them now, one woman that would answer, I was sure of it.

"River… River please." I didn't know what she said. I didn't bother to pay attention, I just collapsed. One break after another my joints gave way, and I stopped trying altogether. I fell and I closed my eyes and I waited for death to claim me. My breathing altered, to a point where it hardly existed at all. There was only one thing, I knew, that might ever save me, and yet I couldn't ask for that, I didn't even want to consider it, I didn't want to take away the lives to come of someone that radiant. My breathing was shallow, more shallow than I'd ever felt it be before. I deserved this, I reminded myself: I deserved this death, because even River thought so. I was aware, vaguely, that someone asked me — someone begged me for something, some way out of whatever it was that was coming, and I told them a lie because I knew I had to. But that was long ago, it seemed, so long ago — and I was so tired. It would be a release to die, a mercy I knew was not something I truly deserved, but still I took it because I was a coward. My chest stopped rising, my hearts stopped beating, and every second that ticked by then passed like an eternity as I just existed as a nothing.

And then… warmth. I hated the warmth, I knew it meant something that I did not want it to mean. It meant life, but death at the same time — it meant I got to live while someone else, someone important, had to die much sooner than they should. My eyes launched open, my lungs expanded, life flooded back into my body and the words that had made so little sense suddenly shone like a dictionary out to me.

"River… River no, what are you doing?"

But she didn't answer, and I was shocked to find life after life flooding into my body, storing away — I had to stop her, I had to stop what she was doing before she gave me her own life, as well. I pulled away, shocked and terrified, and her body followed me, unconscious as ever. I didn't deserve this. I didn't deserve her sacrifice, and the fact she'd done this ignited a fury inside me, something that had remained dormant for many years. I flipped her over, ready to scream at her, but her eyes had slipped closed. For a few moments, for a few terrible, awful moments, I believed that she had died; I believed that I had done this one final act of evil, had gone so far to keep on living that I'd murdered my own wife, had robbed her of all her regenerations. But her chest still rose and fell silently, showing the life within her. My anger ebbed away in the moment I found that she was alive, replaced instantly with the jubilant happiness that at least she was still with me, at least she hadn't lost so much control that she'd given me every ounce of life left within her.

"I'm sorry, River. Amy. Rory." I looked up at each of them in turn, and as my eyes moved to find theirs I realised that I was crying, that tears were running down my face. But I was not sad; I was happy, I was so glad that they were still alive, that they had managed to save themselves despite the fact I had uselessly, helplessly failed to save them. I was happy that River was still alive, I was happy that I could love them all for just one more day. They were happy tears.

Humany-wumany happy tears.


End file.
